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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Sat. 05/14/05 08:02:32 AM
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Blogworthies LXVI Because The Blog from the Core simply can't cover everything. Noteworthy entries @ Lead and Gold, ut unum sint, Insight Scoop, Daly Thoughts, The Corner, ProfessorBainbridge.com, Anchor Rising, Pontifications, Church of the Masses, Apologia, Sed Contra, Is That Legal?, Recta Ratio, A Western Heart, Captain's Quarters, Wittingshire, Against the Grain, Midwest Conservative Journal, Flos Carmeli, Michelle Malkin, The Cafeteria Is Closed, The Right Report, Armavirumque, Rightwingsparkle, A Physicist's Perspective, and Power Line. Upon further review @ Lead and Gold: I suggested below that a decision-making experiment referenced in the HBR was flawed because it used students as a substitute for real decision-makers and then drew some bold conclusions from their behavior. Another bit of unreality is that the experimenter seems to think that policy is worked out in a relaxed vacuum where the participants bring a tabula rasa to the question they are dealing with and then focus on the facts set before them. This in no way resembles the environment real policy makers describe.... Now, having calmed down .... @ ut unum sint (quoted ellipses in original): Let's look at some points in Commonweal : Scandal at "America". American Catholics, including most regular churchgoers, get their news about the church from the secular media, not from church spokespersons or official pronouncements. Most Catholics read about papal encyclicals in the papers; they don’t read encyclicals. True. And many Catholics got their understanding of the "spirit of Vatican 2" from reading America and NCR and Commonweal and Xavier Rynne and not from reading the documents themselves. .... the senselessness of silencing perhaps the most visible, and certainly one of the most knowledgeable, fair-minded, and intelligent public voices the church has in this country.... Reese has for years been a much-relied-on source for the mass media in its coverage of Catholic issues. During the recent conclave, his visibility increased exponentially .... Whether he was fair-minded is the question; that he was "the most visible" was part of the problem.... Many Protestants fascinated by the Catholic Church... @ Insight Scoop: ... in positive and negative ways. The positive is captured in this article from Fort Wayne's Journal Gazette. Of course, there still are some misunderstandings, as is to be expected: .... Making Sense of the Pew Typology Study @ Daly Thoughts: Earlier today, I linked to The Pew “Typology” Study. It is rather long (the full report pdf file is 116 pages), but it has some interesting results worthy of more detailed consideration. Using replies to certain issues and values questions, it breaks the population down into groupings of shared characteristics that are more specific than the generic party affiliation or conservative/moderate/liberal ideologies. These groupings are as follows (descriptions from the report): .... A Late Entry Re Derb @ The Corner: Derb wrote: The great 20th-century conservative presidents were Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan. Neither was an atheist, but neither was much of a church-goer either. Their expressions of religious belief did not venture far beyond the requirements of "ceremonial deism." I’ll leave Calvin Coolidge to someone else, but regarding the Gipper what we have here is a misleading half-truth and a straightforward error.... Conason is Wrong. Again. @ ProfessorBainbridge.com: Joe Conason reflexively criticizes President Bush's candid remarks on Yalta, opining: .... A Revolution of Discipline @ Anchor Rising: In email conversation with URI women's studies professor Donna Hughes — who has published on NRO and FrontPage — about an online course that she'll be teaching in the fall, "Human Rights and Foreign Policy," I suggested that conservatives have quite a bit of work to do to reclaim inclusion with issues that are often considered "liberal" by definition. It shouldn't be reasonable for students registering for a women's studies course to assume that they know for whom their professor voted in the past five presidential elections or what her view on stem-cell research is. The following part of Prof. Hughes's response struck me as worth publishing, here, and I've done so with her permission.... Do you have a Pope in your belly? @ Pontifications: How little can I get away with believing and still be considered a card-carrying Christian? This attitude might be described as the liberal Protestant disease. Those of us who are Episcopalians are well acquainted with this disease, and we know that the disease affects most Christian traditions. But I confess that I am always a little bit shocked when I see Catholics expressing similar attitudes.... Fighting Hard for a Legacy of Failure @ Church of the Masses: In my new screenplay, I have a scene in which an elderly dying man, stubbornly resists his stated attraction to be reconciled to God. After a wracking bout of bloody coughs, he rasps to the young priest hero of the piece, "I told myself my whole life, that I wouldn't turn to God in the end because I was afraid." I got this line straight from real life. Suffering from Parkinsons, an agnostic aunt of mine said this to me one night a few years back, after a few glasses of wine. I remember being bowled over by the pathetic absurdness of it all, saying, "And? How is that working out for you?" .... Right after Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict the XVI (is the "the" necessary?), I read in the news — and saw on the telly, of course — that the reaction of some Catholics among us was one of grave disappointment, somewhat to the effect that their church had just been plunged back into the dark age of inquisitorial witch hunts, faggots aflame, thumbscrews, anathemas, crusades, and the whole sorry catalogue of previous offenses. But just as often this downbeat assessment was followed by a note of cheery optimism, which went something along these lines: look, Ratzinger is the result of the previous Pope's legacy. After all, he appointed a huge percentage of the cardinals eligible to vote, so naturally they'd pick his man. But the Church can't keep out the zephyrs of change forever. In 30 to 50 years it probably won't even look the same. We shall see women consecrating the bread and wine. After the Church takes its final step into the modern world by accepting birth control as a reasonable and moral means of spacing children (when we bother to have them at all), we shall see a general clemency issued by the Pope himself for all previous penance imposed upon those who bothered to confess having used it, an absolving of the absolution. In spite of the pathetically fervent and anachronistic desire of some for a return to Latin, we shall see that language purged from the liturgy and fall into its final desuetude. Priests will marry by the boatload, there will be liturgical dancing in the aisles, homosexual "commitments" will be blessed, John Kerry will not be required to impose his faith on himself before receiving communion, and the numbers of the Lord's flock will be increased an hundredfold. And so on and so on.... Why Don't Gay Activists Picket Mosques? @ Sed Contra: A little bit ago, here, I blogged an item about a report from the Freedom House which documented religious texts that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is sending into mosques in the U.S. which, among other things, teach that converts to Islam who engage in homosexual activity can be plundered and killed.... Yom Hashoah 2005 @ Is That Legal?: Somewhere, in a shoebox or a file cabinet or a dresser drawer, there might be a movie. Sixty-three years and eight days ago, on April 26, 1942, my great-uncle Leopold Müller and his wife Irene were marched on a roundabout route from a Gestapo gathering point in a small park in Würzburg through the city's streets to a train depot. There they left their luggage on the platform and boarded a train to the East. To their deaths. The Nazis scrupulously documented this deportation. Dozens of photographs were taken, like the one you see here. My great-uncle and his wife are in this group. Somewhere.... The calendars mostly don't mark it any more, but sixty years ago today, the US & UK celebrated a day of jubilation to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany. That victory was won at the price of much, much blood. In fact we suffered losses in liberating Italy, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, part of Czechoslovakia, and North Africa that would make modern pundits blanch. Eighty thousand Americans were killed, wounded, or captured in the Battle of the Bulge alone. The effort took almost 31/2 years, including the North African and air campaigns.... Today is VE Day. Services and commemorations on the 60th Anniversary of the end of war in Europe will be conducted throughout most of Europe, for most of Europe was involved. The Russians take a particular interest, as it was Russian troops that took Berlin at the end. Thousands of pages of historical analysis has been amassed, views and opinions by the millions espoused, and still it continues. Like Australia and New Zealand's observance of ANZAC Day, the countries involved will reflect on their national character, and where the last 60 years has taken them. For some, out of the ashes of history, a new beginning. No one could deny that without the Marshall Plan at the end of WW2, Japan would probably be on a par with Thailand or the Philipines. Instead, it is an economic powerhouse, home to some of the world's largest companies, with a democratic constitution and an appetite for consumerism surpassed only by the US.... Liberal Editor Supports Janice Rogers Brown @ Captain's Quarters: Perhaps Harry Reid should get out more often before pronouncing personal judgments on people he doesn't know. Two days after calling Janice Rogers Brown a "bad person" and accusing her of a hidden agenda to return the US to Civil War status, the editor of the Sacramento Bee writes a long and passionate defense of Brown that should give the entire Democratic Senate caucus pause before signing onto Reid's disastrous filibuster project: .... Kansas Scarecrow Showing Its Straw @ Wittingshire (emphasis in original): An essay of mine ran in today's Kansas City Star: Study strengths, weaknesses of evolution By Jonathan Witt, Special to The Star It seems the Darwinists in Kansas are living in the past.... A Plea for Civility — And an Opportunity for Charity. @ Against the Grain: Many words have been exchanged since I. Shawn McElHinney and Greg Mockeridge decided to publicly express their concerns over the manner in which Stephen Hand (TCRNews.com) misrepresented the positions of those who disagreed with him on certain matters of prudential judgement — capital punishment, economic policy, and the use of military force in the war on terrorism. Here's a timeline of posts to date: .... Dear Sir @ Midwest Conservative Journal: Reading the Letters section of Episcopal Life is always an instructive experience. For example, who says Episcopal liberals never engage on an intellectual level? Here, one Max Coolidge-Gillmor of Orland, Maine effectively employs the celebrated argument known as the reductio ad littlebrotherum, popularly referred to as "I Know You Are But What Am I?" .... What I Learned from Blogging — Part DCCCCLXXV @ Flos Carmeli: I was stunned to learn something today, that had I taken a moment to ask any one around me probably would not have come as any sort of shock at all. In fact, if I had bothered to look back on my life at all, it would be immediately evident. I do not make my choices solely, or even predominantly by reason. I use reason to inform my choices and my decisions, but ultimately I trust more how I feel about something than how I think about it. This is life experience. In every case how I feel about something has been far more trustworthy than how I thought about it. Thinking about it makes me like a lawyer, I can find a million ways to shape my thought and reason to justify anything I want to do. But the reality is, how I feel about it is what I should be trusting. Without revealing too much personal information I can tell you that I was once in a situation when I knew in my heart that one choice I could make was a poor, perhaps even a sinful choice. When I considered the matter "reasonably" I considered all of the factors, God's law, family solidarity, possible outcomes, potential meaning, and all the information I could pour into the decision. I made a choice to go ahead and to this thing about which I had grave misgivings. It ended disastrously, with a fragmentation of unity and hard feelings all around. This was the ending my heart saw, not the one I could come to in my thinking.... Special Report: Inside An Illegal Alien Rally @ Michelle Malkin: On Saturday [May 7] afternoon, I drove to Rockville, Md., for a large "gathering to condemn the REAL ID Act." (The act will tighten driver's license standards to prevent illegal aliens from obtaining the IDs, close asylum loopholes, and provide funding to fix a huge gap in a border fence between California and Mexico.) Casa de Maryland, a government-funded open-borders group, organized the protest on the public school athletic field at Richard Montgomery High School.... My conversion in a nutshell @ The Cafeteria Is Closed: I used to be the complete opposite of who I am now. I was a secular liberal prone to blasphemy with a strong dislike for religion and a Germanic darkness paired with Viennese sentimentality. Great combination!... School Board Pulls Sex-Ed Curriculum @ The Right Report: The Montgomery County Public School District has put its new sex-ed curriculum on hold after a federal judge ruled the program unconstitutional. From today's Washington Times: .... I don't check messages to our letters address very often, which means that I may be missing some amusing (albeit inadvertently amusing) communications. Consider this gem, from a self-described "third world feminist of colour" (original capitalization and punctuation preserved): .... Confessions of the daughter of a "right wing" fanatic @ Rightwingsparkle: .... Growing up I recall putting on my shiny black buckle up shoes and pulling on my Catholic school plaid jumper and sitting in front of the TV before I go to eat my daily breakfast from my most beloved mother.... Michael Behe: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made... @ A Physicist's Perspective: This is my second post on Michael Behe's visit to Davis. This will cover his seccond lecture (title below), and essentially is my notes on the lecture. You can find my post on his first lecture here. I'll follow these posts up with some of my own comments in the near future. Behe's Saturday morning lecture was entitled, "Fearfully and wonderfully made: A Christian Perspective on the Molecular Foundation of Life".... A Gun that Doesn't Smoke @ Power Line: Maybe I just missed it, but I haven't seen a lot of comment on the top secret British memo that was leaked just before this week's election. It apparently was written by Matthew Rycroft, and summarizes a meeting of Tony Blair and some of his top advisers on July 23, 2002. The memo is intensely interesting, so I am going to reproduce it in its entirety: .... Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 05/14/05 08:02:32 AM |
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